What will it take to get rid of offshore drilling?

Answers

People are going to have to begin making small changes in their day to day lives. Everything from cutting personal electricity use to finding ways to get energy from renewable sources. People vote with their dollar, and if they can show politicians and corporations that they no longer need vast amounts of oil and want to begin the switch to renewable energy, offshore drilling will naturally begin to diffuse out.

Cutting electricity use will have virtually no impact on oil production or importation, as only about 1% of electricity generation comes from burning oil. Offshore the US is just about the only significant unexplored area, and is basically the only potential place for finding significant oil. As long as 70% of oil consumption is in transportation, and economic alternatives to liquid fuels contribute trivially to that role, then imports and offshore exploration have no alternative.

Note too, that if US cars were to switch to electric sources, then rather than being dependent on imported oil, we would be dependent on imported neodymium, lanthanum, lithium, and more in the electric car motors, batteries, and elsewhere. And at least for the forseeable future, use of coal, the prime source of electricity generation, would have to increase a lot.